Ministerial screening: Reps move to make portfolio attachment mandatory

A bill to make it mandatory for the president to attach portfolios to the ministerial nomination list has been introduced to the House of Representatives.

The constitution alteration legislation sponsored by Eugene Dibiagwu has been scheduled for the first reading today, Wednesday, as lawmakers cut short their holiday to pass President Bola Tinubu’s request for amendment to the 2023 budget and the N2.17 trillion supplementary budget.

The bill is also seeking to make it mandatory for governors to attach portfolios to the commissioners’ list.

The bill seeks to alter sections 147 and 192 of the 1999 constitution.

“(3) Any nomination made by the President pursuant to 7 subsection (2) of this section shall be accompanied by the proposed portfolio(s) to be occupied by such nominee,” the proposed amendment to section 147 reads.

Similarly, the bill proposes the alteration to section 192 as follows: “(3) Any nomination made by the Governor of a State pursuant to subsection (2) of this section shall be accompanied by the proposed portfolio(s) to be occupied by such nominee.”

Over the years, the nomination of ministers without attached portfolios means that Senators have to ask questions blindly because they do not know the specific portfolios of nominees.

Often lawmakers ask questions based on the work experience of a particular nominee.

However, the executive argues the president has the discretion to shuffle the cabinet, hence, if the nominees are confirmed with a specific portfolio, the president may have to send the minister back to the Senate for confirmation.

“It may arise in the course of his assignment that the President or the Governor may decide to reassign him to another ministry.

“If you assign and the person is screened and in respect of that portfolio, that means the President may have to send the name again back to the Senate for screening or for confirmation,” Senator Ita Enang, the ex-Senior Special Assistant to former President Muhammadu Buhari had said in 2019 during the confirmation hearing.